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In an effort to protect the community and those camping or playing by the river at Tobe and “Red” Moore’s newly purchased property off Sunflower, the Marion County Sheriff’s and Marion Police departments are moving their shooting range from its location to the south county shop west of Sunflower Rd.

“We thought it was a good idea to move for safety reasons,” Marion Police Chief Tyler Mermis said. “The new range is bigger and will allow us the opportunity to train differently to prepare better for situations in today’s world.”

Different training includes practicing taking shots from behind obstacles and cars and shooting more with rifles than shotguns.

“Police are moving away from shotguns and using rifles more,” Mermis said.

The range will be for law enforcement use only according to Sheriff Robert Craft. The Marion Police Department hopes to move to the new range in the next couple of months after moving all the equipment from the current range to the new one. The sheriff’s department is already utilizing the new range.

The departments have plans to build a new range building in the future.

“I’d love to get a building out there for storage,” Craft said.

The range has been modified to include a taller berm for better safety in the case of a stray bullets.

“It’s a safer area for us to complete our annual training,” he said.

The fate of the old range, is owned by the city of Marion, is still up in the air.